


De Essere Soli

by Shotgun_sinner



Series: After the Fall [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal's red sweater, Longing, M/M, Regret is real, Will Graham Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25642738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shotgun_sinner/pseuds/Shotgun_sinner
Summary: *To Be Alone.So this fic is a gift to CorneliaGrey, who asked for angsty, miserable, regretful Will. Here you go, darling.Takes place before, "After the Fall," but can certainly be read on its own.Will's thoughts and feelings after Hannibal surrenders. Warning, here be angst. Although not much, if you read on with After the Fall.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: After the Fall [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852015
Comments: 15
Kudos: 131





	De Essere Soli

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CorneliaGrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorneliaGrey/gifts).



The last thing that Will wanted to do was return to work. Even to lecture.

It felt so fucking mundane to do something so normal after the month that he had. Still, he wasn’t endlessly rich. He had depleted his savings account to get to Europe and Lithuania. He had hoped the depletion wouldn’t matter in the long run. He had hoped it would just get him far enough to find… him.

Finally seeing him was like being stabbed in the gut all over again. Painful, intense, and almost nauseating in the relief that it was over, finally. He could finally stop searching.

He had been sitting there at the Uffizi gallery, head tilted as he drew Will’s likeness. (And Bedelia’s, a sharp, jealous, part of him supplied.)

The reverence on Hannibal’s face when they looked at one another said everything that Will just could not. Then, Hannibal said the most romantic thing that anyone has ever said to Will in his entire life, and Will finds himself admitting some half-truths of his own.

Full truth would have been telling Hannibal that he was wounded. Not just physically, but emotionally. He had been expecting a kiss that horrible night, and instead he got fileted like a fish.

Watching Abigail die had been excruciating. 

He was so angry and hurt by that night, he could not admit that he _ached_ for Hannibal. He missed the companionship of the only person who truly knew him, could fully appreciate him. Hannibal was the person he’s been looking for his entire life, and when he finally realizes it, he’s being gutted.

Expectation of a kiss that turned into a penetration with a blade. The irony is not lost on Will.

After he recovered in the hospital, Will goes down to the evidence locker and noses through everything they had found in Hannibal’s home. A lot of it was mostly circumstantial, to be completely honest. There were instruments, but no DNA anywhere. Nothing that didn’t implicitly tie him to any past murders, aside from the carnage he wrought that night.

He was a clean killer, not that Will was surprised.

They took all of his sketches, and Will was heartbroken to realize they were mostly of Will. There were some buildings and recreations of art, but Will was the primary subject.

Without much thought, Will pocketed one. He wanted it and would be damned if anyone would tell him he couldn’t have it. There were hundreds, and one going missing wouldn’t ruin anyone’s life.

He would visit Hannibal’s empty home, on occasion. Wander the sterile rooms and find himself in awe that all the warmth of the home vanished along with Hannibal.

He went into Hannibal’s bedroom, sighing at the scent of his cologne that still permeated the room. He had never been up here, and he had felt almost shy, going through his closet. 

He found a few tailored pieces that he clearly had made for Will. The custom monogram on the tag was a sweet touch, Will thought.

Hannibal had made him these clothes for their new life together. Will could imagine himself wearing them, while he and Hannibal visited a museum or a café. The idea alone made Will’s gut ache with want, and he hated himself for it. The only reason it wasn’t a reality was because Hannibal had stabbed him and left him, which caused it’s own separate kind of ache, but in Will’s chest.

These clothes would sit in a closet until crime scene people finally made their way up here to find circumstantial evidence.

These shirts would not be here when they did.

Will took them, as well as the expensive wooden hangers. He had already decided he would wear one when he found Hannibal again.

As he was turning to leave, his eyes fell onto a red sweater gently folded at the foot of the bed. It had clearly been worn, then taken off and put aside for later.

Later had never come.

Will took it and brought it to his nose, sobbing at the smell of Hannibal still in the fabric. 

He took it, too.

When he got home later that night, he stripped clean of his clothes aside from his boxers, and slid the soft fabric over his body, immersing himself in Hannibal’s scent. His hands had fisted in the fabric, as though by sheer willpower alone he could conjure Hannibal. 

Perhaps if Will could have put aside his anger, and just have appreciated the beautiful man sitting next to him on the bench that day, things could have turned out differently.

Instead, as they left the gallery, Will let his jealousy and anger come to a head, and all he wanted to do was sink the little blade he had in his pocket inside of Hannibal. If Hannibal could penetrate Will, then God damn, Will could do it to Hannibal.

He never got a chance. A bullet tore his shoulder open, the _same_ fucking shoulder that Jack shot, and Will barely remembers the rest of it until Hannibal wakes him up some time later to feed him soup that turns out to be a fucking _marinade_.

He’s cutting into Will’s head, and all Will can think is that this is their legacy, together. All of this between them would end with a fine dinner of Will’s brain and a glass of pinot grigio.

The interruption is all that saves Will’s life, although he hoped that Hannibal would just fucking stop for a minute and hear what Will wanted to say, but that’s never been his way.

Hannibal reacts, in the moment. A flash of betrayal or anger turns into bloodshed. Will figured they were doomed from the start. They hovered around one another and took petty jabs, looking for weakness, trying to draw blood. Their relationship was toxic, and while Will recognized it, he still could not help himself.

He loved Hannibal. 

It wasn’t enough, though. 

While in Muskrat farm, Hannibal was mostly kept from his line of site. Will worried the entire time if they were gutting him, right now. Was he tied down somewhere while Cordell removed his hands or feet? Were they taking his fingers from his hands?

Those long, lovely, fingers. Will could feel them on the nape of his neck, warm and soft. He could practically imagine them wrapped around his wrist, taking care of his battered knuckles.

The idea that Cordell could be roasting them right now was beyond anything Will could tolerate thinking about.

Seeing him at the table was an immense relief, even though they were both tied down. The blatant adoration on Hannibal’s face when Will tore Cordell’s cheek with his mouth sent a pleasant little zing of pride through his body. 

Will was mortified by it. Hannibal, as far as Will was concerned, was out of his life for good. He had cut into Will’s body for the last fucking time.

It didn’t mean he wanted him dead, though.

He doesn’t remember being saved, although he knows Hannibal saved him.

When he wakes up in his bed with Hannibal looking at him like he’s the only thing in the world that matters, it stings. He knows Hannibal probably loves him, in his own fucked up way.

It wasn’t Will’s fault that he was too damaged to be loved in return.

So, Will sent him away, for what he hoped would be for good this time. With words hurtful enough to cut, he watched the emotions roll over Hannibal’s face, and wondered how the fuck the words he was saying could also cut him, too.

Of course, Hannibal would surrender. Throwing the same words Will had hurled at him right back.

He was a fucking stubborn, despicable, thing. Will hated him.

He loved him.

He would never, ever search him out. He couldn’t. Will knew already that metal bars between them wouldn’t stop Will from eventually pulling the man back into his life. He was a temptation that Will couldn’t resist, so he would practice abstinence. 

He didn’t go for the booking, either. 

His life after Hannibal’s surrender was, for lack of a better word, empty. He had no one. No one that could possibly fill the void Hannibal always managed to leave in Will’s mind, maybe in his heart, if he were being particularly sentimental. 

The difference this time was that he couldn’t just go find him somewhere. He couldn’t seek him out and beg his forgiveness. This was the end, and there was nothing he could do about it. 

He drank to fill the emptiness. He retreated from everyone else. He lived like a ghost, haunting his own house.

He stared at the sketch he had stolen from the evidence locker, his eyes following every line that Hannibal had made of him. It was beautiful, and it was drawn in reverent adoration of Will. 

He drank more. He ached more. Regret was a physical presence in the room with him at all times.

So, walking into his classroom a month later, and having mindless students clap when they saw him, irritated him in a way that nothing ever had.

“Stop it,” Will said harshly. “He surrendered, nothing to clap about. It’s… inappropriate.”

The classes felt long, that first day. All Will wanted to do was sit at home and get drunk, but he needed money to even buy himself the whiskey.

Jack had come to find him after class, walking in almost nervously. “How was your first day back?”

Will took his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. “It feels monotonous. Fucking pointless, honestly.”

“We could use your help on something, if you’ve got a minute?”

Will laughed, but the sound was hollow. “Of course you do. Sure.”

They went up to the lab, where Price and Zeller were bickering over a body.

“They’re hesitation cuts,” Zeller said, pointing his fingers.

Price tisked, “Hesitation twenty times? I don’t think so.” Price argued haughtily.

Will looked over the body, covered in superficial stab wounds. He tried to bring up his empathy, honestly, he did.

He just… couldn’t. He stared at the dead man for longer than really appropriate, the drone of others in the room dissipating to a muffled hum in the background.

“Will?” Jack said, touching Will’s elbow.

Will shook his head, trying to clear it. “I don’t know, Jack. I just… I can’t.”

The huff of annoyance from Jack was like sandpaper, chafing and irritating. “Stay here and look at this body until you can.”

Will stood there while Jack slammed out of the room, and Price turned to him as though concerned.

“He’s… frustrated not having you around as much,” he supplied.

Zeller took a few photos of the body, “And then his wife, too. His whole life doesn’t revolve around Will.” 

“No kidding,” Price taunted.

“Are you doing alright, Will?” Zeller asked, though the tone of his voice was bland and uncaring.

“Yeah,” Will lied. “Just… been through a lot. Not in the right mindset for this anymore, I don’t think.”

“Verger came real close to killing Lecter,” Price said quickly. “Kind of ironic that he branded him like a pig before he intended to eat him.”

“Also ironic because Lecter liked to eat people,” Zeller noted.

Will’s stilled, finally hearing what Price had said. “He… was branded?”

“Oh yeah,” Price said easily. “He didn’t say a peep at the arrest. I found it while we booked him. It was nasty, infected. Maybe he wanted the infection to kill him instead of getting a needle?”

“I think I’d rather get the needle than sepsis,” Zeller chimed in.

While they bantered about which end would be more humane, Will’s body felt cold all over.

He left the room without saying a word, walking over to a computer to log in.

A few clicks and he was looking at photos of Hannibal’s booking.

The clothes he had been wearing, items in his pockets, before getting to Hannibal’s body shots.

Will’s eyes slid appreciatively over Hannibal’s chest and arms. He hated himself for it, but he had never seen Hannibal without a shirt on. It seemed ridiculous for that to be true, given their intimate history. Intimate, but never physical.

He suddenly understood all the stuffy suits. 

This body belonged to a predator. All lean muscle and corded shoulders. No one would know this lurked under the pompous suits unless they peeled off the disguise.

The next photo pulled the air from Will’s lungs. 

A photo of his back, blistered with a large, brand. The edges were almost magenta in color, while the middle was charred and blackened. There were spots of glistening green and yellow, and Will couldn’t imagine how the fuck Hannibal had carried him out of that place that day. He must have been in excruciating pain, yet he carried Will like a damsel in distress for very likely miles.

He wished he could remember even a moment of being in his arms like that.

The brand was so infected and raw, you couldn’t make out the lines of the brand just yet. The infection that had set in would certainly mar the finished result. 

Anger swelled in Will as he stared at the brutalized skin of Hannibal’s toned back.

He wondered if it was Cordell that did this and decided it must have been. Will wished it was he who had killed Cordell for doing it. It wouldn’t be fast. Will would take his time, maybe branding his entire body beyond recognition, going over the same raw, blistered flesh over and over again until Cordell's body eventually gave out.

His fists tightened in his lap as he stared. How dare anyone do something like this to someone who doesn’t belong to them.

Will ached to see it, as it looked right now.

He wondered if it had been cleaned correctly, if the skin was healing pink and shiny like his smile on his abdomen.

It wasn’t a question he could ask anyone, not without the appropriate amount of concern arising from asking it.

His leg bounced under the table as his muscles twitched in the seat. A fine layer of sweat had worked its way from his skin as he itched to see Hannibal.

He felt like an addict, craving another hit. If he could just see him, maybe he could ask him to show Will the brand? 

He imagined the knowing smirk on Hannibal’s lips as he unzipped his prison jumpsuit, pulling the fabric open and turning as he slid it from his corded shoulders.

The rest of the vision blurred, as he couldn’t picture what it would look like.

He clicked out of the photos and sat in the chair, trying to get a grip on himself as Jack wandered over to him again. “Look, Will,”

“No,” Will interrupted. “ _You_ look. I’ve been through hell this past month. I know you’re going through a lot too but be empathetic to what I’ve been through. I know you don’t get it, but he was my friend.”  


Jack stared at Will, his face aghast. “I’m going to need your testimony for his trial. Is that something you can manage?”

Will’s stomach turned at the very thought. “Yes,” he said quietly. Jack didn’t have to know that he would be fighting to keep Hannibal from getting the needle that Jack so desperately wanted to give him.  


“Good,” Jack said eventually.

The days leading up to the trial were excruciating. He didn’t go for most of it, but he was called to the stand, and he would have to show up.

He wore the clothes that Hannibal had made for him, taking the time to style his hair and trim back his beard. He put on the aftershave Hannibal hated, smirking as he wondered what the older man would think of that.

He looked at himself in the mirror and mourned the loss of never wearing this out with Hannibal. He looked good, and the knowledge of it shocked Will.

A navy blue blazer and slacks, with a crisp, fitted, white button down tucked in. The whole outfit was fitted. Hannibal preferred his own suits to be boxy in a way, but it seemed if he were to dress Will up, he liked the long, lean, lines of Will’s body highlighted.

Hannibal couldn’t see him sitting behind him, as he was strapped to a chair and had a protective facemask on, like the one Will was forced to wear.

Will glared at the prosecution, knowing that the jury seeing him like this was certainly a death sentence no matter what happened in the trial.

When they called him up, his eyes sought Hannibal’s own, his knees going weak as Hannibal’s eyes looked him over. There was pride in them, as well as blatant longing.

He forced himself to look away as he swore to tell the truth.

So, help him God.

The questions started off simple enough. How did you meet Doctor Lecter? What is your impression of him? Things like that. All questions that Will could be vague about, while giving a touch of personality to.

“Doctor Lecter cut you open that night in Baltimore, is that correct?”

Will shifted in the seat. “It is, yes.”

“Were you surprised by his actions?”

“No,” Will smirked. “I had hurt him emotionally far more than he had hurt me, physically.”

The prosecution seemed at a loss by that. “Could you explain that, please?”

“He thought I was his friend, and I had betrayed his trust. He did what he did in the heat of the moment. I’m almost certain he’d regret it, if he could.”

“If he could?”

Will nodded, dragging his eyes back to Hannibal’s own. “He is unwell. He needs psychological help.”

There was a faint murmur in the courtroom, and Will noticed Jack shaking his head at him.

“You’re trying to suggest he wasn’t mentally competent for the things he’s done?”

“You’ve already heard from Doctor Bloom that she feels the same way. I’m not suggesting it, I’m stating it.”

“You and Doctor Lecter were… friends, correct?”

Will slid his eyes back to Hannibal, and the glassiness in them made Will swallow back tears of his own. “Yes, he was my friend.”

“Do you think this clouds your judgement on punishment for Doctor Lecter?”

“No,” Will said easily, his eyes never leaving Hannibal’s own. “I was in his shoes, once. I needed help, psychologically, and if someone had decided to give me the needle instead, I wouldn’t be here. I also don’t know what you’re trying to do, having him in court trussed up like that. He surrendered, he’s not going to hurt anyone else. Sure makes a man look guilty before he’s sentenced.”

“Mr, Graham,” the judge chastised with a martyred sigh.

“I’d like to strike this testimony from the record, your honor?”

The judge chuckled, “You’ve made your bed, Ms. O’Connor, now you’ll lie in it. Two witnesses with expert testimony in psychological background have suggested insanity. With that, I’d like to take a recess to consider Ms. Bloom’s request for life in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.”

“Your honor,” she began again.

“That will be all, for today.”

Will sat in the chair, numb from the neck down. His eyes had never left Hannibal’s own.

As he made his way from the chair, he deliberately wandered over to Hannibal, standing perhaps fifteen feet away. 

He wanted to say something. Anything. 

He couldn’t.

Their eyes held one another’s, and Hannibal spoke first. “Thank you, Will.”

Will nodded, his eyes swimming briefly as he blinked them to clear them. “Take care, Hannibal,” he said softly, his voice thick with swallowed emotion. He used his name intentionally, as it was likely the last time he would use it to address him. 

With that, he left. The intention to never see him again a weight on Will’s chest that felt suffocating.

He went out through a side entrance where the press was not allowed to loiter, and the door slammed open behind him. “What the fuck was that, Will?” Jack spat.

Will reeled on him, his tears finally escaping against his wishes. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me!” Jack yelled. “We had him. All we needed was for you to tell your side of things, and we’d have been able to get him the needle.”

Will’s mouth fell open. “I didn’t realize that you wanted to me to puppet words for you, Jack. I said what I felt. I gave my opinion. I don’t need your permission to have my own feelings.”

“Feelings,” Jack echoed. “Your _feelings_ for Doctor Lecter? What are they, exactly?”

Will felt like he had been slapped. He reeled back, his fingers touching his chest as though it pained him to even think about it. “I told you that he was my friend.”

“Yeah, you’d have to say that, wouldn’t you? A lover testifying for the defendant’s sanity would be a mistrial, and you don’t want that.”

Will’s heart slammed in his chest with Jack’s words, but he intentionally kept himself calm. The idea of it clearly riled Jack, and Will took a moment to revel in it. “If I were his lover,” Will said softly, rolling the word from his tongue as though he were savoring it. “And I’m not saying that I am, I wouldn’t want that. You’re right.”

Jack was looking at him as though he had never seen him before. His tight swallow suggested maybe he had just learned something more than he had bargained for.

And Will ached knowing that while there was certainly love, in its own twisted, mangled, way, they were not lovers.

They never would be.

“I think maybe it’s best if you don’t consult with us, anymore.”

“Probably right,” Will agreed. “Am I still lecturing, or should I be looking for another job?”

“Lucky for you, I have no say over your job as a professor, Will.”

Will hummed. “If that’s all?”

“He’s hurt you. He’s tried to kill you a few times, already. I just… I don’t understand it.”

Will shrugged, “I’ve hurt him, too. Maybe more than he’s hurt me.”

“The help you suggested he needed, I think you need it, too.”

Will knew he meant the words as an insult, but he laughed. “You’re probably right about that, too.”

Will turned and walked away towards the private lot where his car was parked. Every step away from the building where Hannibal was felt like another tether snapping from his body. 

It should have felt freeing. Instead it felt like he was tearing his own body apart.

He drove to his house, barely remembering the drive there. The quiet of his yard as he dogs ran around it felt… too quiet.

This was all his life would be, now. Solitary. Right back to square one.

There would be no more late-night conversations. No more companionable silence. No promise of more.

The beast inside of Will would starve from lack of attention, dying out eventually and taking Will with it.

He would become the chrysalis casing left behind, instead of the beautiful creature that emerged.

It was what he deserved.

He shucked the clothes from his body, taking care to hang them neatly on their wooden hangers. He wouldn’t be able to wash these, they’d have to be dry-cleaned.

He pulled on his pajama pants, and then took the red sweater from his drawer.

He pulled it on reverently, noting regretfully that the scent of him was long gone from the fabric, and not ever to return.

He sat in his chair, drinking whiskey in the deafening quiet of his house. In the deafening quiet of his life, now.

He wished, not for the first time, that he had left with Hannibal when he woke up in his bed after Muskrat farm. What if he had just kissed him in the Uffizi gallery? What if he had just told him how he felt? He let the tears fall, now. There was no one in his life to see them, anyway.

It was too late.

What the judge said to the prosecutor applied to him, too.

He had made his bed. Now he had to lie in it. Alone.


End file.
